On Input

I noticed a big sudden spike in visitors yesterday. Turns out Khatzumototweeted my last article. That’s a nice coincidence, because I came here to write about the importance of large quantities of input.

I’ve been looking for “The Fix” recently. The thing that I can do that will allow me to do things in Chinese more like native speakers do them. Grammar, phrasing, word choice, accuracy, the whole nine yards. I’ve tried tons of things. Except one, until recently.

Turns out, that one thing happens to be the “One Thing” I’ve been looking for, so why was native, comprehensible input the one thing I didn’t try? I can’t figure it out for the life of me, except that I knew I was focused on learning academic Chinese, and that I knew that such a high proportion of people who use Chinese in academia went to ICLP, so I focused on using their curriculum and textbooks as my blueprint.

As I think is clear in my last article, it worked reasonable well. I’m working as a translator, I’ve attended graduate-level lectures, etc. Nothing to sneer at.

But still, when I speak Chinese, it isn’t comfortable. I don’t always phrase things the way a native speaker would, so I often sense a moment of confusion, however brief, before they understand. It’s rare that they don’t understand, but that brief moment really bothers me.

It isn’t my pronunciation, my tones, or my intonation. I’m not one for false modesty, and I can say that those things are good enough that they almost never cause problems. It’s my phrasing and word choice. It’s called 翻譯腔 in Chinese. I’m translating directly into Chinese from English. Not all the time, of course, but it happens often enough.

I think Krashen would say it’s because I’ve learned the language, but I haven’t yet fully acquired it. Sounds right to me.

So a few weeks ago I was reading some articles over at AJATT, and I thought I’d give this whole comprehensible input thing a shot. Again, I don’t know why I didn’t do more of this before, but so it goes.

I put on a movie while I was translating one day a few weeks ago, and I haven’t looked back since. I found my brain putting phrases on repeat. I kept hearing 姜文 and 葛優 in my head (the movie was 讓子彈飛) for the rest of the evening, and I was thinking in Chinese more than in English. It was like my brain had been put solidly into Chinese mode, when that’s usually a pretty tenuous state for me. The next day I did more, and I felt comfortable speaking Chinese. I’m generally somewhat reluctant about it because I’m too aware of my shortcomings, but this time I had no hesitance. I spoke freely and more fluently than usual, and felt much more confident about it. I was hearing Chinese in my head the whole day, even when I wasn’t listening to it.

So I went home and read about the “din in the head” that Krashen talks about. I had heard the term but hadn’t really looked into it, but I knew that this onslaught of Chinese my brain was feeding back to me must what it referred to. I was right. Krashen believes that it signals that language acquisition is taking place. The article resonated with me, because it described exactly what I was experiencing and allowed me to make sense of it.

An important point that Krashen points out (and has been borne out in my experience) is that aural input triggers “the din” much more effectively than reading does. Read a lot, by all means (I’ll be participating in the 多読コンテスト/Tadoku/Read More Or Die challenge next month, and you should too). But put in lots of time with your headphones on. I’ve found it to be much more effective as far as this goes. Krashen says two hours seems to be the dose that makes the magic happen. Again, he seems to be right in my experience.

Also, I should emphasize that it needs to be comprehensible. It’s fine if there are some things you don’t understand, even preferable. But you need to be able to follow it. On the easier end, 龍貓 (Totoro) is a great choice.

I should say here that no amount of listening to recordings of ICLP textbooks did this for me. I think it’s because they’re boring. As much of a fan as I am of what 思想與社會 teaches, I can admit that the lessons are mind-numbingly dull. 讓子彈飛 is fun. It’s really entertaining, so I found myself tuning into it while I should have been working, when I would tune out something like 思想與社會 even when I wanted to focus on it.

So I’ve gotten so excited about all this that I’ve even started sentence mining again. New rule (for me): it only goes in if I find it interesting or funny. So there’s a lot from 讓子彈飛, Deathnote, the Chinese translation of Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle (馮尼果，《貓的搖籃》), articles on 台語書面化, whatever. The funny stuff is especially fun to review because it takes me back to that moment in the movie or book, and the other stuff is fun because it’s interesting. I’m also putting in things from a book I’m reading on pre-Qin history, which is 一舉兩得 because it helps me learn stuff in my field and improve my Chinese at the same time. That book is in 簡體字, so those cards are too, because I need to get better at reading the language of Mordor anyway. I think I’m going to do this with a lot of the books I’ll be reading in my field. If I’m diligent and thorough about it, I think it will help a ton.

Anyway, that’s it. Go out and buy some movies in Chinese. They can be Chinese movies, or dubbed movies. I’ve found that Disney and Pixar movies tend to have great voice acting if you get the official version (though the shady street vendor versions can be their own brand of fun awfulness), as do Ghibli movies. A lot of Hong Kong movies have Mandarin dubbing too. Other than those, most movies in Taiwan don’t get dubbed as far as I know, but apparently they do in China, so you can order from there. Watch them and listen to them repeatedly, and let the magic happen.

Hi there! I recently discovered your blog while re-emerging from my tangent off on Korean from the intensive Chinese studying I had. By the way, I’ve been in Xinzhu, Taiwan for 4 months for a study abroad, though I’m returning in a month (真得可憐!). I employed the AJATT MCDs to the extent that I can now read Chinese books freely such as the Twilight 中文版本 (I was pounding cards day and night to achieve this). This along with immersive hearing has allowed me to improve my Chinese a lot relative to the time time frame I’ve done it in, there is still sooo much more. As I’ve seriously decided to become a translator, what do you recommend to do in order to achieve this and making it a marketable skill? I still need to read a LOT more.

I think my ability to read has fooled me into believing my Chinese was OK, which let me slide from my Chinese focus into Korean. But after going out more to try to speak Chinese, reality hits me pointing out flaws in my hesitant speaking, sometimes weak listening comprehension and some aspects of my pronunciation. This spurred me to change my approach so I’ve recently been researching Krashen, reading field linguistics, TPR and TPRS and what interpreters use since I think I’ve definitely reached the AJATT MCD method’s limitations in producing output (btw where do you look for all your language acquisition articles?). From your articles and my research, I think I need to start thoroughly memorizing little snips of dialogue, extensively read, shadow, do the Glossika Sentence Method and search hard for some audio material that’s compelling and at my comprehension level. What are your thoughts about this? And also, anything cool I should do before I leave Taiwan?

I should say first that the reason I have this job as a translator is that I happened to meet and befriend a very experienced translator (whose Chinese is very much near-native) shortly after I moved here. A while back he asked if I wanted to work under him, so here I am. So he sends me some of the work he gets (he gets more than he can handle) and we split the money. He keeps about a third because he has to put in the time to review every sentence I’ve translated before he turns it in. His clients include huge multinational corporations, and they of course expect a quality product. I’m happy with this arrangement because it keeps me from having to build my own list of clients, and he teaches me a lot.

I should also say that this isn’t a career path I’m considering. Sure, it’s an option if the whole academics thing doesn’t work out, but I’m not planning to be a translator forever. For now, it’s just a job that pays well and helps my Chinese tremendously, which is reason enough to stick with it for a while.

With that said, I’d of course recommend doing a lot of reading. Read things that challenge you. Read as widely as you can. Obviously, every field will have its own specialized vocabulary, but a lot of vocabulary and structures will pop up over and over. You need to get really familiar with written Chinese in its different forms. I’d also recommend translating and getting someone to check. Of course it has to be someone who knows both languages well enough and isn’t afraid of wounding your ego, so I’d say most Chinese teachers are out. 🙂

Then there’s the obvious route of doing an MA in translation. If you really want to do this as a profession, I’d say it’s pretty much a requirement. You’ll learn not just translation, but other things relevant to the profession like how to build up your client list, how to find your niche, etc. There are good programs in Taiwan, China, the US, and probably Europe. If you don’t have a BA yet, I’d recommend doing it in Chinese of course. If you could do it in Taiwan, even better. If not, maybe consider doing a double major in English too, I don’t know. It’s just as important for your native language to be sharp and flexible as it is for your target language to be.

As far as improving your Chinese, it sounds like you’re doing the right kind of thing. Keep doing it, keep experimenting with what works, etc. Don’t get married to one method or approach. Be flexible. But really, I’d say you need to get back to Taiwan whenever you can, and for a longer period of time. I know Khatzumoto talks about building an immersion environment at home, but the reality is that few people are able to maintain that well enough. Plus, living in the country and actually interacting in your target language every day is essential. I’ve read over and over that it takes 3-4 years of hard work in-country to really become comfortable with Chinese. That seems about right to me (at 2 years, I’m still not there).

I look on Google for language acquisition articles. If it isn’t Googleable, I haven’t read it. Language acquisition is only interesting to me practically, not academically, so I don’t go out of my way to find this stuff.

Go to Kenting for a few days if you haven’t yet. Spend a day in Jiufen, and check out one of the tea shops. I hear Hualien is beautiful, but unfortunately I haven’t been yet. See a few museums in Taipei (and elsewhere). Take lots of pictures.

Could I also ask what resources you’ve used to learn Japanese so far? I may see how well doing the sentence method from scratch will develop in another language. And thanks again for all the great info!

Mostly Assimil Japanese With Ease. I’ve used other books here and there, but mostly that one. I got a Japanese friend to re-record the whole book at a natural conversational speed because the audio that comes with it is so ungodly slow.

I also have 《日本語10000句會話辭典》, Book2, 《第一本快速開口說的日語200句型》, and iKnow Core 6000. That last one was converted by someone into nice PDFs, which I printed and had bound at a local print shop.

Another great one is Shadowing: Let’s Speak Japanese. You can find it at Kinokuniya at the Breeze Center in Taipei. I have both volumes, though Volume 2 is a long way off. Really awesome books.

I have another book that’s intended for Japanese speakers learning Taiwanese. It has 2900 sentences in Japanese, Taiwanese, and Mandarin (and recordings of all), and I may end up using that one. Multitasking, you know.

But for now, it’s just Assimil and Shadowing. I’m trying to figure out what to do next, but I do know that I’m not going to worry too much about reading and writing until I’m reasonably conversational. Language is sound, after all, not ink. I’m a firm believer in approaching language learning primarily from an oral/aural perspective at first, and only learning reading and writing later. Of course, I look at the written sentences in the book, but I don’t make any effort to learn the writing.

Wow, it seems you’re pretty far into learning Japanese. And yeah, after learning Chinese mostly through the AJATT method, I’ll be much more weary of working on my reading skills in hopes of it transferring to my spoken and listening abilities. Can’t wait to check out the resources! Thanks again for all the help Mr. Chinesequest.

I’m actually not very far at all, I just have a tendency to amass resources. The only real Japanese study I’ve done is Assimil (Shadowing is supplemental), and I’m only about 30% through the book. Still very much a beginner.

I like a lot of aspects of AJATT, but I think it’s best done once you’re able to speak and understand reasonably well, and read stuff pretty well.